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Good morning everyone!! I've got some anxiety today (and by "some" I mean I'm not doing any of the paperwork on my desk today) and of course I over think everything... I'm curious to know your thoughts

I had a long conversation with my man last night. Basically all of his plans for training/deployment are up in the air, which I have been preparing myself for from the start. We've been talking about the fact that long distance only works when there's a plan. We had this same conversation before he left, and I had all this same anxiety about "is it gonna work?" "Do we have enough time together to keep this going?" all that stuff. So part of that conversation was us agreeing that we need to have little "goals" to look forward to. Right now it's difficult to make a plan, or plan trips because he could be going off to training soon (he just reported to his new station for the first time last friday). He's not sure when he's going to find all of this stuff out. The guy that's sort of in charge of that doesn't even report to the ship until this coming Monday, and I have to assume it's a longer wait after that process even starts. He said once we have all that information, then we can start to talk about things to look forward to.
THEN he started saying all this stuff about how, "I don't want to scare you but it's a very real possibility that I won't be able to see you for a very long time". Maybe he goes from training right to deployment? Is that a thing? How often do carriers even deploy? He started to say "with my schedule, it could be over a year, I have no idea"...and then, "...if that's the case", there's a good chance this "might not work out... we've only spent 3 months together...we don't have any of the information we need yet... when the time comes we will talk about this and make a decision together...". I know these are all mature things and he's probably right, right? I'm just sad and anxious about the whole thing.
I keep reading these military/long distance articles and everything keeps saying you have to plan trips or the relationship goes nowhere. And we both know this but we just can't do that yet. I feel like I'm right back to where I was right before he left.
The conversation basically ended with him saying his feelings for me haven't changed and that neither of us are giving up on this. We just need more information. I tried asking more kind of hypothetical questions about the future and he said I'm just going to make things worse in my head by making up "what if" scenarios.
We have only had 3 months, physically in the same state together. I am just praying that's enough time. I know that if I went there to see him, it would solidify a lot.

Good morning everyone!! I've got some anxiety today (and by "some" I mean I'm not doing any of the paperwork on my desk today) and of course I over think everything... I'm curious to know your thoughts

I had a long conversation with my man last night. Basically all of his plans for training/deployment are up in the air, which I have been preparing myself for from the start. We've been talking about the fact that long distance only works when there's a plan. We had this same conversation before he left, and I had all this same anxiety about "is it gonna work?" "Do we have enough time together to keep this going?" all that stuff. So part of that conversation was us agreeing that we need to have little "goals" to look forward to. Right now it's difficult to make a plan, or plan trips because he could be going off to training soon (he just reported to his new station for the first time last friday). He's not sure when he's going to find all of this stuff out. The guy that's sort of in charge of that doesn't even report to the ship until this coming Monday, and I have to assume it's a longer wait after that process even starts. He said once we have all that information, then we can start to talk about things to look forward to.
THEN he started saying all this stuff about how, "I don't want to scare you but it's a very real possibility that I won't be able to see you for a very long time". Maybe he goes from training right to deployment? Is that a thing? How often do carriers even deploy? He started to say "with my schedule, it could be over a year, I have no idea"...and then, "...if that's the case", there's a good chance this "might not work out... we've only spent 3 months together...we don't have any of the information we need yet... when the time comes we will talk about this and make a decision together...". I know these are all mature things and he's probably right, right? I'm just sad and anxious about the whole thing.
I keep reading these military/long distance articles and everything keeps saying you have to plan trips or the relationship goes nowhere. And we both know this but we just can't do that yet. I feel like I'm right back to where I was right before he left. The conversation basically ended with him saying his feelings for me haven't changed and that neither of us are giving up on this. We just need more information. I tried asking more kind of hypothetical questions about the future and he said I'm just going to make things worse in my head by making up "what if" scenarios.
We have only had 3 months, physically in the same state together. I am just praying that's enough time. I know that if I went there to see him, it would solidify a lot.

Three months is the amount of time DH (back then he was DB) and I had been dating before he left for the Marines and we had to be apart for over 1 year. However, we never really experienced the back and forth feelings that y'all are. We just really wanted to stay together so we made it work.

Three months is the amount of time DH (back then he was DB) and I had been dating before he left for the Marines and we had to be apart for over 1 year. However, we never really experienced the back and forth feelings that y'all are. We just really wanted to stay together so we made it work.

It will work out if y'all want it to.

This.

If you both want it, and are willing to work for it, then it can last. It won’t always be easy to do this. Both of you will likely have days where the payoff doesn’t seem to match the effort you put in...but if you both truly want it, you’ll find a way to try.

How often carriers deploy is kind of an impossible question as there are just so many factors. And in addition to deployments, there are workups (in most locations), which are basically different trainings where they go out (usually for weeks at a time) but it isn't considered part of the deployment. Other factors include location, maintenance phase the ship is in, world events, and more. Deployments can last 6 weeks or 10 months (maybe more, though that's unusual). But that doesn't address how long between each one, or how long work ups last in addition to that.

How often carriers deploy is kind of an impossible question as there are just so many factors. And in addition to deployments, there are workups (in most locations), which are basically different trainings where they go out (usually for weeks at a time) but it isn't considered part of the deployment. Other factors include location, maintenance phase the ship is in, world events, and more. Deployments can last 6 weeks or 10 months (maybe more, though that's unusual). But that doesn't address how long between each one, or how long work ups last in addition to that.

my husband is on a smaller ship and since he has been on sea duty I think he's been home a total of 3 months. It's not all deployments underways make up most of the time he is gone (actually underways have made deployment seem short). Adding training to this schedule and it is very likely that he won't have free time to visit for a year plus.

my husband is on a smaller ship and since he has been on sea duty I think he's been home a total of 3 months. It's not all deployments underways make up most of the time he is gone (actually underways have made deployment seem short). Adding training to this schedule and it is very likely that he won't have free time to visit for a year plus.

May I ask? Your husband has been home a total of 3 months in what given time period?

I'm still learning a lot, what is the difference between a deployment and an underway? A close friend of mine is on a sub and he calls them underways, while my boyfriend is on a carrier and he says deployment.

I think my biggest anxiety is stemming from hearing that the relationship might be in jeopardy if we don't see each other within the year. I completely agree that if we want to make it work, it will work. Maybe another conversation needs to be had.

May I ask? Your husband has been home a total of 3 months in what given time period?

I'm still learning a lot, what is the difference between a deployment and an underway? A close friend of mine is on a sub and he calls them underways, while my boyfriend is on a carrier and he says deployment.

I think my biggest anxiety is stemming from hearing that the relationship might be in jeopardy if we don't see each other within the year. I completely agree that if we want to make it work, it will work. Maybe another conversation needs to be had.

3 months in just over a year...and that "home" means not on the ship..one of the months he spent in CA so he's really been in our house about 2 months.

Underways are shorter, 1,2,3 months etc out to sea usually doing exercises or our ship does a lot of Fleet Weeks. Deployment is longer--ours is approx 6 months but thats shorter than most that I have heard of.

I think a conversation about how committed to making it work you both are because it is probably going to be a lot of time apart and periods of no communication if the ship is underway or deployed. Personally I'm glad I met my husband on shore duty because there is no way we would be married if this was the beginning of our relationship and he agrees and flat out says thats why he didn't date on his last sea duty tour.

edited to add: depending on where he's stationed hurricane season can have them out from FL and VA a lot...

If you're worried about the lack of time physically together being a barrier to your relationship, I'm living proof that it doesn't have to be! My boyfriend and I are long distance, and we've been long distance since day one. I've only seen him a handful of times in person in two years, maybe a total of three months if you add up all the trips together. He's been deployed four times so more than half of the year he's abroad and when he's deployed, there are times where I go weeks without hearing from him. A long distance relationship is a lot easier to handle if there is a plan in place, but there doesn't have to be a "set in stone" plan. For us, a general "we'll close the distance as soon as we can" gets us by. Having more do-able plans like promising to call twice a week, emails once a day, etc. also really helps in validating the relationship, especially if trips in person aren't possible. And of course, whenever he's stateside, do your best to make a trip. I don't always have a trip planned, but I'm always looking at flights and dates for whenever he is available. You can still have a relationship without actually being there all the time with each other.

Maintaining a relationship long distance/abroad is definitely do-able, even if you feel like the face-to-face time is short, but it's up to you and your significant other to decide if it's worth it because tbh, it's definitely not easy. But like what idratherbehiking said, it'll work out if you both want it to.

The hardest lesson I had to learn while going thru my long distance relationship + DBs navy/sea duty schedule was that it was nearly impossible to plan when we would see each other, but we knew that we would find ways. We often planned visits at the last minute. I'm talking, I would find out a month or even down to the week before he could definitely tell me he was coming to see me. He was on a forward deployed sub so his underway/deployments were very frequent and schedule always changing. The only time we could really plan a visit in advance was over the Christmas stand down period when I went to see him. It takes trust, because even tho I didn't know when we would see each other, I knew DB was also always thinking about when he could make it happen.

It sucks sucks sucks, to not know when you'll see them next. But, you both need to know that's what you're striving towards and that's a priority for both of you. If one of you starts to become less interested in the relationship, then LDR stands no chance